PowerPoint conversion is now live in the SlideMagic app. The back office workflow is still a bit improvised, but it works.
I see many users requesting PowerPoint conversions of the SlideMagic templates, in the hope that they can use the simple SlideMagic slide manipulation functionality in good old PowerPoint. That will not work in most cases. All elements of a SlideMagic chart line up beautifully in a grid, and when converted to PowerPoint, all these blocks become individual PowerPoint shapes. If you do not touch them, they look great, but try to make changes to a slide layout, and you have to go through tricky resizing and re-alignment exercises. It is this type of work that probably makes up 50% of my bespoke presentation design work and which was the main driver to try to automate it.
Before committing to developing SlideMagic, I have tried extensively to program a smart PowerPoint template that could do similar things, but I could not get it to a level that was simple enough for a layman designer to use it. Believe me, I tried (really hard).
I hope that SlideMagic users will feel increased confidence to give the app a try now that they know that there is always a way back to PowerPoint, if they want. But at the same time, I think users that have given the app a real opportunity to show itself (create one presentation start to finish), will see the limitations of PowerPoint and make the switch.
Whether there will be a PowerPoint import feature as well? The answer is a definitive "no". Because of the fundamental differences in design approach SlideMagic takes, it is not possible to convert PowerPoint into SlideMagic presentations.
Let me know your feedback here in the comments or via jan at slidemagic dot com. Not yet a SlideMagic user? Sign up here.